Coda: Time After Time
by Eve889
Summary: Picks uplast scene in Time After Time.


Post Time After Time By Debra Wilson (Editor's note: Picks up toward the end of the Time After Time episode.)  
  
"Have it your way! She inherited your genetic immunity. If I have to, I'll drag her through the tunnels myself. Either way I will have my plague!" Kempler raged at her, even as Marguerite saw Lord John Roxton slipping down the stairway behind him.  
  
The click of Roxton's pistol made Kempler tense.  
  
"Drop the gun," Roxton said, aiming at the man's back.  
  
"Lord John Roxton, I presume," Kempler said. Marguerite could see by the way his eyes were moving Kempler was debating his options. He suddenly whirled to shoot Roxton.  
  
BANG!  
  
Kempler fell dead to the ground. Marguerite looked down at him. She knew what she had to do. Roxton lowered his gun and quickly made his way to Catherine's side. She was still alive, but badly injured.  
  
"I've got you, I've got you," he whispered, lifting her up. He looked at Marguerite who had moved to the pedestal the Eye of Souls sat on. She lifted it up. "What are you doing?"  
  
"Cheating fate," she whispered, picking it up, adjusting it and putting it down. Then she crouched beside Catherine.  
  
"The doorway." Catherine Reilly's voice was weak.  
  
"Closed, forever," Marguerites whispered, fighting tears. She glanced at Roxton-they knew she was dying.  
  
"Thank you," Catherine gasped.  
  
"What are you thanking me for, for getting you killed?" Marguerite asked, disbelief in her voice.  
  
"No.thanks to you, I will never have lived.." Catherine gasped, then she was gone.  
  
Roxton looked at Marguerite as she clutched the woman's hand and sobbed. He gently laid Catherine down and rose, picking his pistol up from the ground. He looked back at the two women and the pedestal.  
  
"Get back, Marguerite," he said. She look at him, confused, as he raised the pistol, then quickly rose to stand behind him as he took aim at the Eye of Souls.  
  
A single shot and it was destroyed.  
  
Almost immediately, Marguerite's journal and then the two bodies dissolved in a glimmer of gold speckled lights. Marguerite looked at Roxton. He raised one hand, brushing the side of her face. Even as he moved it to pull her toward him, she leaned into him, still staring where the bodies had lain.  
  
Roxton didn't know how long he stood in that ancient chamber, Marguerite in his arms, when she abruptly pulled away. She quickly wiped her eyes and forced her tears away. A few seconds later, Veronica bolted down the steps, knife in hand. Ned Malone and Challenger were on her heels.  
  
"Are you all right?" she asked, sweeping the room for Catherine or the man Ned and Challenger had told her about.  
  
"We're fine," Roxton replied, though he wasn't completely sure about that.  
  
"Where's Catherine?" Veronica asked  
  
"And Kempler," Ned growled, wanting to even the score with the man.  
  
"Dead," Roxton replied, gesturing toward the destroyed Eye of Souls. "Gone--both of them."  
  
"What about the passage?" Challenger asked. He looked at the walls.  
  
"Closed, forever," Marguerite said, then turned and went up the stairs. She brushed past Ned on her way.  
  
"What's with her?" Ned asked, glancing after her then back at the others.  
  
"Guess it's hard to find out you've killed half the world," Veronica muttered.  
  
"Huh?" Ned asked. Veronica quickly told them why Catherine had come back from the future. Ned explained what Kempler had told him.  
  
"He lied," Roxton replied. "He wanted Marguerite to go through the doorway. Apparently he cured the plague and made a fortune off it."  
  
"Amazing, in a way," Challenger remarked, looking about the room. "Time travelers-altering the future. Or in Kempler's case, seeking to make sure it plays out as it did."  
  
"But where are they? Did they go back to the future?" Ned asked. He still couldn't believe the tale Veronica had told them: Catherine claimed that Marguerite would carry a plague back to the world and they'd all die.  
  
"No, they just vanished," Roxton said, gesturing to the ground near the pedestal. "He shot Catherine. He was trying to force Marguerite through the doorway when I shot him."  
  
"So, they were dead," Ned said. "But what happened to the bodies?"  
  
"They don't exist any more," Challenger said.  
  
"That's what Catherine said before she died," Roxton said suddenly. He moved to where she had lain. "She thanked us. that she'd never be born."  
  
He still felt the guilt over such a fact. If he's been faster she might not have been shot.  
  
"You changed the future, the circumstances that lead to her birth no longer exist as they did," Challenger theorized, his mind formulating theories. "The world she was born into no longer exists. Our lives have taken a different path -"  
  
"I think it's time we headed back," Veronica interrupted, sensing Roxton's unease. "Summerlee will be worried."  
  
"At least we have the balloon for a quick ride back," Ned said, trying to lighten the mood.  
  
*************************** *********************  
  
It was a quiet ride back that evening. Roxton kept his eye on the ground. Challenger was busy with the balloon controls, Ned helping him. Veronica kept an eye on Roxton and Marguerite. The heiress stared at the encroaching darkness, her face impassive. She stood as far away from the others as she could in the small basket.  
  
Summerlee had dinner prepared when they arrived. He took one look at their faces and made them sit down at the table. He quickly served the meal and then listened as Ned explained how they'd found the body and gone up river to investigate and met up with Kempler.  
  
"Kempler told you he'd come back to make sure Marguerite found the tunnel and went through it?" Veronica asked.  
  
"Did he say why?" Summerlee asked.  
  
"He claimed I found an unlimited energy source," Marguerite said. "His story was that rival energy producers sent an assassin back to kill me before I could find it." She shrugged, picking at her meal. "Plausible reasoning."  
  
"And Catherine?" Summerlee asked.  
  
"She came here to kill Marguerite. I never heard the real reasons why," Challenger replied, looking at Veronica.  
  
"She knew about the plague, figured killing Marguerite would stop it from happening," Veronica said. "She had us held prisoner by those natives and went off to find Marguerite."  
  
"What is it?" Ned asked.  
  
"She was pretty good at speaking their language when we first encountered them," she murmured thinking it over.  
  
"They had a common language," Marguerite shrugged. "If she was prepared as she was, she probably already knew it before coming back."  
  
Veronica was about to disagree when Summerlee interrupted. "So she came back through time to kill Marguerite?" he asked, knowing there was something Marguerite didn't want to get them talking about-it was in her eyes. "She didn't think there was another way."  
  
"A perfectly logical solution," Marguerite replied, as she rose from the table, her food barely touched. "One life versus millions dead. Immaterial now anyway, since none of us went through the passage. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed."  
  
The others muttered a quick good-night to her departing back.  
  
"You said Kempler was threatening Marguerite, trying to force her to go through the doorway?" Challenger asked.  
  
Roxton nodded. "When she refused he said he shoot her and take Catherine instead." Suddenly he stopped, recalling the rest of the man's words. She inherited your genetic immunity."  
  
"Why take Catherine?" Ned wondered.  
  
"What is it?" Veronica asked, noting Roxton's strange expression. "You know something, don't you?"  
  
"He said Catherine inherited Marguerite's genetic immunity." Roxton said, as realization hit him. The others mulled this over.  
  
"Nonsense, the only way that would be possible is if Catherine were -" Challenger began.  
  
"Marguerite's descendant," Summer finished.  
  
"A great-great-grandchild," Challenger added, doing the math quickly in his head.  
  
"Her own descendant came to kill her?" Veronica asked, slightly horrified.  
  
"But by killing Marguerite, wouldn't she kill herself?" Ned wondered.  
  
"I don't think she cared," Veronica remarked. "If the world was as bad as she indicated.."  
  
"Amazing," Challenger said. "She must have gone to some effort to come back. I wonder how she did it. The ability to travel backward and forward in time.." Lost in thought, he wandered down to his laboratory.  
  
Summerlee frowned, thinking it through. "It must have been terrible in that life. Poor Marguerite."  
  
"Poor Marguerite?" Ned snorted. "She killed half the world and all of us."  
  
"But to survive and knowing what you'd unwittingly done." Summerlee said, shaking his head. "Don't you see? The guilt, the isolation she would have endured. Any children would be taken from her from fear of exposure to the disease. Those children would be kept in isolation as well, for fear they too could be carriers. To grow up that way.."  
  
The others fell silent.  
  
*************************** *********************  
  
Marguerite prepared for bed, even going as far as lying down, but couldn't sleep. She picked up her journal, staring at it, recalling the one Catherine had. That one had vanished with her great-granddaughter's body.  
  
She flipped through the pages, relaxing as she realized the awful future she'd read about would now never happen. Granted, they were still trapped on the plateau, but at least they were all alive.  
  
At least I didn't cause their death.  
  
"Destroyed half the world." She murmured, recalling Catherine's strange tale. She didn't want to believe it. The others - Summerlee, Challenger. Roxton. Dead because of me.  
  
She shuddered, pushing those thoughts aside. She told herself again it hadn't happened. But she couldn't stop her thoughts from recalling all the deaths she was responsible for. "If only they knew.."  
  
*************************** *********************  
  
The others had all gone to bed. Roxton stood on the balcony staring out into the night. He was lost in thought. Catherine.. a descendant of Marguerite! Thinking about it, recalling her features and her ability with languages it made sense. She was just as damningly secretive as Marguerite.  
  
"Can't sleep?" Summerlee asked.  
  
Roxton startled, then flushed as he nodded.  
  
"An interesting day," Summerlee continued.  
  
"Yes, nearly getting killed in an attempt to save the world," Roxton replied.  
  
Summerlee smiled. "I wonder what it was like for them: to grow up in such an environment. For Marguerite, once they traced the disease to her. To know she caused all the destruction without meaning to."  
  
Roxton didn't want to think about that. For all her faults, he knew she would have been consumed by guilt.  
  
"Now that I think about it, I can see a lot of Marguerite in Catherine," Summerlee said. "Especially her eyes."  
  
"She certainly had Marguerite's gift for languages," Roxton said, having seen her speak to the natives. "And her secretively nature. If she'd told us the truth from the beginning."  
  
"Come now, John. Would you have believed her?" Summerlee said. "None of us would have helped her to kill Marguerite."  
  
"But we could have stopped Marguerite from going upriver," he replied. "From ever reaching that place."  
  
"But would it have worked? We would have wondered if there were another way - a way to go without risking the disease," Summerlee shook his head. "No matter what we did, it would have changed the original future. Catherine still would have ceased to exist, her world no longer there."  
  
"But would she? Couldn't she have stayed here, with us?" He wondered.  
  
"I don't believe so, but I suppose it is possible. It might have created some sort of paradox. After all, now Marguerite never met the man who fathered her child and began the line," Summerlee frowned, thinking about it. He noted Roxton tensing at that. He smiled to himself, returning his thoughts to the question. "I suppose it's possible. But she really didn't belong here. It would have been very difficult for her. But then, I guess her life really was difficult in the first place."  
  
Roxton frowned, not liking the idea of Marguerite being with someone else. He tried to shake the feeling off. There were no ties between them- she'd made that perfectly clear. He shook his head.  
  
"It's still hard to imagine them being related. Catherine willing to sacrifice herself." He forced himself to think of all the times Marguerite had endangered them.  
  
"Personally, I think they're very much alike," Summerlee said, staring off into the distance.  
  
"How so?"  
  
"You don't think Marguerite understood what her great-granddaughter had come here to do? She herself said it was a perfectly logical argument: One life vs. millions," Summerlee frowned.  
  
Roxton considered this. For all her selfish behavior and complaints, Marguerite did come through in the end for them. Perhaps she was more like Catherine than he realized.  
  
Excusing himself, Summerlee went off to bed. He knew more about Marguerite's past, but it wasn't his place to tell Roxton. Yes, Marguerite understood about sacrifice and one life vs. millions very well. He smiled to himself, not that she would ever admit to such a thing.  
  
Roxton was tired of thinking about it. It was over, Catherine was gone, not to ever be in the first place. He glanced out at the darkness. They would need to finish their hunting tomorrow, best to call it a night. He rose and headed toward his room.  
  
*************************** *********************  
  
Marguerite stared down at the drawing she'd made in her journal. Catherine's face. Not a bad likeness, she thought to herself. A face that would never be now, she thought sadly. The life Marguerite might have had in London with Catherine's great-grandfather no longer to be. Especially since I'm stuck here.  
  
She wondered who she had had a child with, realizing it wasn't anyone from this party. Given they were all dead long before the child was conceived. Some nameless face simply to give herself a child to keep her company? A marriage of convenience? Or were woman forced to breed to continue the human race? She shuddered at that last thought.  
  
The considered she might have found someone to love her shook her head. No doubt it was some marriage of convenience. Someone with a title, prestige, and power.  
  
Would he have then shunned her and taken the child once it was realized she was the plague carrier? Or would she be sought at to breed immune children?  
  
What would her life have been like? Kempler had inferred she'd been alone. Most likely kept in isolation once it was known she was a carrier.  
  
Marguerite shuddered. She remembered the stories of what they did to plague carriers. Sealed permanently in a small room, no window, and no sunlight. Food dropped in on them until they died. Would that have been her fate?  
  
Or was she locked into a lab somewhere to be poked and prodded behind glass walls. Studied for the disease she carried.  
  
What had happened to her daughter in that world?  
  
They must have thought me a monster - willingly or not - I destroyed half the world.  
  
She completely understood Catherine's rationale. She doubted the others would have believed her capable of it - but she agreed with it. Better to die than to live the life she would have otherwise.  
  
But if only Catherine hadn't died.. Never to be known.  
  
Picking up her pencil she began to write. I met what someone who would have been my great-granddaughter. Her name was Catherine Reilly.  
  
  
  
end 


End file.
